


Private Malone

by Merfilly



Category: Riding with Private Malone - David Ball (Song)
Genre: Afterlife, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-04-30 02:18:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14486643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: Andy told Ma to sell it, but she wouldn't hear of it.





	Private Malone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DesertVixen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertVixen/gifts).



> DesertVixen, I had a HARD time choosing between your prompts.

"Ma, promise me—"

"Andy, don't you go talking that nonsense again," his mother said, shushing him by pulling him in for a hug. "You'll be back in a year, and you'll take that little Chevy of yours to go sparking some girl," she said warmly, refusing to believe anything else. "So no more talk about me selling it when you… when you —"

Her voice broke, and Andy folded her back into his arms, kissing her cheek like the dutiful son he was. "Shh, Ma. It's just as you say."

He would do his best to see this tour through, maybe even stick it out, so he could get the pay it would bring, so he could make life better for his ma. Sometimes he wished he hadn't spent the money on his car, but dreams sometimes took hold too hard to resist.

* * *

Jepson and Matthews were in danger. Andy didn't even think, as he swore he could hear the whistle coming in. He threw himself forward, arms outspread. He hit both of them just right, shoving them fully forward and down before the hit.

He couldn't hear anything in that moment. The air became as thick as water, choking the life out of him, searing heat all around. He wished, more than anything, that he had done better by his ma, that he hadn't let her down like this, just before the darkness enfolded him in oblivion.

* * *

The funeral was a town affair. Every single soldier that had come home in a box had been given full respect by the people that had watched them grow up and march off to war. The nearest chapter of the Disabled American Veterans, having observed an inability to respond to the need for military honors in a lot of smaller towns, had been stepping up and doing their best to honor the boys.

The Widow Malone sat front and center, stoic in the face of the loss of her only son, born to a man that had gone to war and never come home to know the boy, as a retired veteran presented the flag to her. Some swore the crying they heard came not from her that day, but a shadowed figure in fatigues off to the side of the funeral, one that never was quite in focus.

* * *

"Ma, you should sell it," Andy said, but his voice went unheeded, even as his mother continued her task of polishing the silver, readying it to be sold. The good china had already been lovingly wrapped in old tea towels and newsprint, packed into sturdy crates.

That his mother continued to sell off, bit by bit, the pieces of her heritage to supplement the meager pension and survivor benefits she received baffled him, when the car sat untouched in the barn. Then again, neither his father's collection of baseball cards nor his own comic books had been touched, as she hung onto the pieces her men had left for her.

* * *

Ma looked frail as she opened the door to the stranger, sizing him up. Andy knew good and well that she was not doing well, that the last years had taken a toll on her health. Now, so long after he'd failed to stay alive for her, she was down to the last choices that would let her remain in her own home.

What would happen to it after — no, he could not think about that. Andy watched as she led the man out to the barn, out to where that car he had worked so hard to save for had sat all these years. Ma hadn't been one for driving, even back then, and so it had not moved since Andy's last ride in it.

The stranger looked the car over, and Andy hovered nearby, listening and watching. At least the man appreciated what he was seeing, and even looked guilty at the price Ma insisted was enough. He couldn't be sure, but he thought at least one extra fifty dollar bill wound up in the cash that was handed over.

The man was smart enough to take the beauty away on a flatbed, even, rather than risk turning her over with old gasoline in her tank and dust in her air filter. While the man waited, he popped the glove box, and Andy felt a burning through him as this new owner of his dream read the farewell note Andy had written two days after the draft notice had arrived.

Andy thought the man looked even more appreciative of the find he'd made, and his throat locked up, thankful this man understood at least some of it.

* * *

He couldn't help but check in on the new owner of his dream car. Andy found he could find the car easily enough, and watched as the man lovingly restored it. That first time the man took it out on the open road, Andy took a seat beside him, and thrilled in feeling the car purr as she had been meant to.

Maybe his mother's stubbornness had been holding it for the right person. Maybe this was meant to be.

* * *

No one but the pastor had come to Ma's funeral. No one but him and Andy, anyway. Andy wept for the loss, but honestly felt relief too. She'd been alone so long, and now she was moving on.

Only, when would he? Was he stuck forever as a shadow on the edges of sight and sound, always alone?

* * *

The burning he'd felt when the man read his letter came back to him, and Andy swiftly gave himself to the pull of his car.

What he found, though, agonized him to no end. Twisted Detroit steel, burning rubber and plastics — the man was still inside the cage of death!

Andy didn't stop to think, didn't let himself see it as impossible. He moved forward, kicking the door that had been ajar hard enough that it swung fully open, and reached in. The man was bleeding, unconscious, and Andy couldn't let him die. He still had a wife to find, children to raise if he chose those things. The flashing lights of more cars, of emergency vehicles were just sparking up the night's rain with jeweled colors when Andy laid his burden down safely from the car, knowing that there were dreams ahead for this man that would never have the car in them.

* * *

"Andy?"

He opened his eyes to find his Ma, looking strong and healthy, kneeling beside him. Next to her, a man he only knew from photos, smiled fondly at him.

"Welcome home, son."


End file.
